Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Double spacing at the start of a sentence
So I recently found out this was a thing that people argue over... Some people were taught to type putting a double space at the start of a new sentence and others were taught just using a single space. The double space thing is supposedly a carry over from people using typewriters to mimic print styles that went out of fashion in the 50s.
I reckon I'm on the losing side as I still do it.
But on this forum my spaces are edited down to single spaces automatically. So you'd never know which side someone was on! Is there any reason the controversy is not as inane as I think it is?
I reckon I'm on the losing side as I still do it.
But on this forum my spaces are edited down to single spaces automatically. So you'd never know which side someone was on! Is there any reason the controversy is not as inane as I think it is?
Comments
Seriously tho, I can't think of any reason to do this. Then again, I also can't think of any reason to add "ugh" at the end of that word in casual use either, so I'm probably not the go-to guy.
It's a force of habit now, so I still do it, but I sincerely couldn't care less if anyone else does nor if websites automatically remove the extraneous space (most do just by default, you actually have to ADD whitespace-preserving code to your HTML form handlers to keep it.)
Edit: Ahhh wow, this fucking forum denies me my right to two space........... At least I have ellipses...
Imagine someone who doesn't care about driving never using their turn signal. They say "how the fuck cares?" they don't care about driving, they just do it to get to work and back.
Well, you may not care about typography, but you are using it right now as you type. If you are going to engage in a practice, and you know better, you have no excuse not to fuck it up when the results of your work will be inflicted on others.
Typography is one of those things that matters a fuckton, but is completely invisible to people who don't know about it.
Funny part is I've never even heard of this issue before this, I assumed everyone was double spacing after sentences. Even in this forum. Until I realized just now that it was auto-correcting that.
It does appear that on some cars directionals are an optional feature.
That article kinda shoots the turn signal argument down. it's aesthetics :-p So it's more about washing your car then it is using your turn signal...
Also the article points out some English teachers taught two spaces. which would explain why I've never had an issue before.
I was taught the single space was wrong in school in the late nineties. They should have made us aware of the controversy and let us make our own minds up rather than drilling it into us.
Edit: This wasn't in an english class. We learnt this in IT!
Thank you, Scott. :-)
"Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It's one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right and women's on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period."
I care about things that actually have an effect on readability and don't just tweak a highly specialized expert's eye.
This sort of obsessive goal displacement seems on par with the fashion show industry that has become about everything BUT what people actually wear.
If an author/editor doesn't re-quote (or whatever the industry specific term is) a block of dialog when a new paragraph starts, that bugs the shit out of me, but two spaces after a period is not going to hamper my absorption of the material.
The point is if that you are the kind of person who will refuse to follow the standard and spit in the face of a respectable and important art/science as typography shows what kind of person you are. If you didn't know you were wrong you should be happy that you have become enlightened, and should take the opportunity to improve yourself by following the rule.
To refuse to follow the standard, now that you can no longer claim ignorance, is the height of arrogance. You are knowingly and intentionally making your writing worse on purpose. Studies or not, you are not a typographer. You do not know better than "every modern typographer". To try to act like you do, or refuse to follow because you don't like it, is an anti-intellectual attitude. Perhaps the most reprehensible of attitudes.